Like many sets of twins, Celine Gunderman and Whitney Gunderman are just inseparable. Like many sets of twins, the Gundermans are choosing to attend the same college. Maybe more accurately in the case of these Cypress Bay High School seniors, one of the nation's most selective institutions, West Point, chose both of them.
[ SOURCE] More African-Americans diagnosed with HIV are living.
A report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found an 18% drop in the number of deaths among African-Americans infected with HIV from 2008 to 2012.
That is a consistent and promising decline, and yet it still means 8,165 African-American HIV patients lost their lives in 2012, a marked disparity that accounts for nearly half of the 17,166 teens and adults with HIV who died in total that year.
Most black HIV patients who died were men who contracted the virus through sexual contact with other men.
"We cannot drop our guard," Dr. Eugene McCray, director of the CDC's division of HIV/AIDS prevention, said in a statement. "HIV is still a serious crisis in our communities. Even though we represent only 12% of the population, more than a third of people living with HIV in the United States are black. And new infections among young, gay black men are increasing at an alarming rate."
While HIV testing is increasing among African-Americans, new infections are still diagnosed less frequently in blacks compared with whites, the CDC said.
The agency also said black HIV patients are less likely to be linked to medical care than any other race. McCray said providing that care and treatment could do more than anything else to keep HIV patients alive and prevent new infections.
The report comes just two days before National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, on February 7, which aims to reduce new infections by encouraging HIV testing.
[SOURCE] Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus, reflected later on how it felt to be treated less than equal and once feistily wrote of how tired she was of being "pushed around" — parts of her history long hidden away.
Beginning Wednesday at the Library of Congress, researchers and the public will have full access to Parks' archive of letters, writings, personal notes and photographs for the first time. The collection will provide what experts call a more complex view of a woman long recalled in history for one iconic image — that of a nonviolent seamstress who inspired others to act at the dawning of the civil rights era.
A protracted legal battle between her heirs and friends had kept the collection from public view for years. But in 2014, philanthropist Howard Buffett bought the collection and placed it on long-term loan at the national library.
"I think it's one of the first times we're actually able to read her voice, and it just totally goes against this image of the quiet seamstress," said Margaret McAleer, an archivist at the library. "Her writings are phenomenally powerful."
"I had been pushed around all my life and felt at this moment that I couldn't take it anymore," she wrote. "When I asked the policeman why we had to be pushed around, he said he didn't know. 'The law is the law. You are under arrest.' I didn't resist."
Parks' archive provides scholars and the public with a fuller sense of her life and faith, her personality and her pain, said library historian Adrienne Cannon.
"It's important because we see Rosa Parks in a kind of almost frozen, iconic image — a hero that is not really real flesh and blood," Cannon said. "Here we get a sense of a woman that is really full flesh and blood."
The collection may surprise people by revealing Parks had an aggressive edge and supported more radical actions seeking equality over the years, archivists said. She used her symbolic status to support Malcolm X, Black Panther gatherings and the Wilmington 10 in North Carolina.
The library now holds about 7,500 manuscript items and 2,500 photographs from Parks, including the Bible she kept in her pocket, letters from admirers and her Presidential Medal of Freedom. A small exhibit is planned for March. All the items will be digitized and posted online.
Artifacts such as Parks' clothing, furniture and a pillbox hat she may have worn on the Montgomery bus, will find homes elsewhere. The library plans to place them with other museums or institutions that can conserve and display Parks' belongings. The library already is in talks with the Smithsonian's National Museum of African-American History and Culture, now under construction on the National Mall, to possibly house some items.
Rutgers Today talked to Khadijah White about why Black History Month is important as the university plans a series of events in observance. White, an assistant professor of journalism and media studies in the School of Communication and Information, researches race, gender and politics in media. She has written about race, social movements, media, and politics for The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Root, Huffington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Los Angeles Times, Quartz and other publications. White is also a regular contributor to the online magazine, Role/Reboot.
Why is Black History Month relevant?
There has long been a contention among student and teacher activists that educators in this country, who are predominantly white, would not teach about black history at all if it weren’t for people explicitly setting aside space and time for it. Now, at least for this month, students can learn about how African Americans quite literally built this society and provided its foundation in so many ways. American history has been shaped around the marginalization and exclusion of African Americans in many arenas. As a result, there are lots of obstacles that have kept African Americans from being fully integrated or recognized in American history. Their accomplishments have often been occluded. Take technological invention, for instance. Black inventors often didn’t get credit for their inventions, and when they did manage to get patents, white inventors often tried to steal them. Granville Woods, for instance, an engineer and inventor with more than 50 patents to his name, often had to fight off attempts by white inventors to steal his patents. Woods is often called “the black Edison,” which I think is really a shame.
What are the most important issues Americans should be discussing during Black History Month?We should reflect on how far we’ve come – and we’re really good at that – but also on how short we’ve fallen. One of the reasons for the recent popularity of the movie Selma, one of the reasons it strikes a chord with so many Americans, is that it reminds us that the issues that people were fighting for back in 1965 are still relevant now – voting rights, in particular. Some parts of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 have been cut back, and the “voter ID” laws being proposed and passed in many states are a new way to make it more difficult for people to vote. Incarceration is another – there are now more black men in prison today than were enslaved in 1850. And the decline of public education, another major issue during the civil rights movement, has turned these sacred institutions into school-to-prison pipelines.
What’s the most important thing African Americans are saying that the rest of America should hear?I think lots of African Americans are saying, look, it’s good that we have a black president, and, yes, we have come a long way. But African Americans are falling behind and discriminated against in all kinds of measures – housing, employment, health care, the justice system, education, police killings of black citizens. The decline of public education in this country disproportionately affects African Americans and people are fighting for access to water in Detroit. People should really check out what’s happening with #BlackLivesMatter, which has been trending on social media in recent months. People born after the sixties so often say they wish they were born at a time when a movement was rising up, and here’s a movement that’s happening right now.
[SOURCE] HBO has licensed U.S. television rights to director Marc Silver’s “3 1/2 Minutes,” following its premiere in documentary competition at the Sundance Film Festival.
The film centers on the 2012 shooting death of black teenager Jordan Davis at a Florida gas station and the subsequent trial of his killer, Michael Dunn.
HBO will air the film in the fall after its theatrical release.
“3 1/2″ Minutes” is a production of the Filmmaker Fund / Motto Pictures, in association with Lakehouse Films and Actual Films. Producers are Carolyn Hepburn and Minette Nelson. Executive producers are Orlando Bagwell, Bonni Cohen, Julie Goldman and Participant Media’s Jeff Skoll and Diane Weyermann.
Watch the trailer below.
Marissa Alexander, a Florida woman who says she fired a warning shot at her abusive husband was released from a Jacksonville jail on Tuesday under a plea deal that capped her sentence to the three years she had already served.
Marissa Alexander, 34, was initially sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2012 but her conviction was later overturned. She faced another trial on charges that could have put her behind bars for 60 years before she agreed to a plea deal in November.
Her case helped to inspire a new state law permitting warning shots in some circumstances.
Leaving the courthouse, Alexander cried as she thanked her supporters, sharing plans to continue her education in order to work as a paralegal.
Read more: Marissa Alexander, Woman Jailed In 'Warning Shot' Case, Released
Black college educators and supporters are sharply split over whether President Obama’s proposal to offer a free two-year community college education to students making progress toward earning an associate or bachelor’s degree would hurt are harm Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
Lezli Baskerville, president and CEO of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO), a nonprofit network of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Predominantly Black Institutions (PBIs), including community colleges, said that for students who have a gap in funding or choose to go to a two-year institution and don’t have adequate funding, America’s College Promise would create another opportunity for them.
“We are trying to make sure that students that want to go and get a technical certification or some training to get their foot in the door, can do that,” said Baskerville. “We also want to incentivize and facilitate students who want to get a four-year degree doing that, especially low-income students for whom options are very, very limited.”
Baskerville said that the jury is still out on whether a student would opt to go to a two-year college for free instead of going to an HBCU. “If they’re going to a two-year institution, they’re going to get a certificate or a two-year degree, something to get them market-ready or entrepreneurship-ready,” explained Baskerville.
“If they’re going to a four-year HBCU they’re going because they appreciate the ethos of historic Black colleges that are built on the traditions of the African American community of family, faith, fellowship, service and social justice.”
However, Lester C. Newman, president of Jarvis Christian College in Hawkins, Texas, believes HBCUs will pay a price.
Read more: HBCUs Divided Over Free Community College Plan
Uzo Aduba, more famously known as Suzanne “Crazy Eyes” Warren on Orange is the New Black, won her first ever SAG Award Sunday night. The first-time SAG winner also made history as the first African-American woman to snag the award. Watch her acceptance speech below:
The Estate of Martin Luther King Jr. Inc. on Thursday voluntarily dismissed a lawsuit it had filed in August 2013 against the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. Dexter Scott King is president and CEO of the estate and Martin Luther King III is chairman of the board. Their sister, the Rev. Bernice King, is CEO of the King Center. Watch more on this story below:
Dr Ben Carson addressed the Iowa Freedom Summit Saturday. He spoke on Obamacare, the right to life, economy, foreign policy and more. What he did best was prove that he has no business running for president let alone being president. Carson spoke in generalities and showed little to no substance. He gave the crowd the usual conservative talking points to get cheap applause and nothing more. In the twenty or so minutes ( Yes, twenty minutes of his nasally voice, my ears are still bleeding) are so that he spoke we learned nothing about how he would actually implement any of his ideas. To be fair he never does say talk on the how to part of things. Watch his speech below:
Move over Halle Berry a new actress will be playing the X Men heroine Storm in the next X Men film. Alexandra Shipp will replace Halle Berry as the new Storm. She will be playing a younger version of the character. The actress recently appeared in the Lifetime movie, Aaliyah: Princess of R&B.
President Obama and the First Lady released the following statement on the death of baseball legend Ernie Banks:
Michelle and I send our condolences to the family of Ernie Banks, and to every Chicagoan and baseball fan who loved him.
Ernie came up through the Negro Leagues, making $7 a day. He became the first African-American to play for the Chicago Cubs, and the first number the team retired. Along the way, he became known as much for his 512 home runs and back-to-back National League MVPs as for his cheer, his optimism, and his love of the game. As a Hall-of-Famer, Ernie was an incredible ambassador for baseball, and for the city of Chicago. He was beloved by baseball fans everywhere, including Michelle, who, when she was a girl, used to sit with her dad and watch him play on TV. And in 2013, it was my honor to present Ernie with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Somewhere, the sun is shining, the air is fresh, his team's behind him, and Mr. Class -- "Mr. Cub" -- is ready to play two.
[SOURCE] Baseball great Ernie Banks died Friday in Chicago, according to Mark Bogen, who represents the Banks family. Banks’ wife, Liz, will hold a news conference at noon Sunday. He would have been 84 next Saturday.
Banks, a former star in the Negro Leagues, came to the Cubs after being signed by former scout Buck O’Neil. Banks became the first black player in Cubs history and made a quick impression, hitting .314 with a double, triple, two home runs and 6 RBI in 10 games during a brief stint in 1953. The next season, the baseball world took notice. Banks started all 154 games at shortstop in 1954 and finished second in Rookie of the Year voting.
In 1955, Banks hit 44 home runs, setting a major-league record for shortstops. When his career ended in 1971, he had 512 home runs, 2,583 hits, 1,636 RBI and 14 All-Star selections. But he never made one trip to the postseason.
The Cubs erected a statue honoring Banks near the corner of Clark and Addison and unveiled Wrigley Field’s new landmark at the start of the 2008 season. The statue has become a must-see stopping spot for camera-toting tourists, and Banks was overwhelmed with pride.
Great news! The company that gave us Static Shock, Hardware, and other super heroes of color is back, Milestone Media has risen again!
The idea arose not just in the wake of Dwayne McDuffie’s death, but also at the wake to remember the man.
Reggie Hudlin, the “Django Unchained” producer, spoke at the gathering in 2011 with artist Denys Cowan and Derek Dingle, who with McDuffie had co-founded Milestone Media, the prominent minority-owned comics publisher. McDuffie, also known for his DC Comics work, was widely considered to be a pioneer in his efforts to diversify the comic-book industry, prior to his shocking death at age 49.
“Derek said, ‘It’s been too long. We’ve got to restart the company’,” Hudlin recounts to The Post’s Comic Riffs, of that day in 2011. “So the three of us have been working for the past two years on sorting out all the business, and now we are the core of Milestone Media 2.0.”
That’s right. Hudlin, Cowan and Dingle tell Comic Riffs that they are working together to revive the company that debuted more than 20 years ago before its demise in 1997 — a publisher that could boast of such heroes of color as Icon, Hardware and Static Shock. That means Milestone titles will soon return to comics shops physical and virtual.
Read more here: Milestone Media rises again. Hudlin, Cowan and Dingle will revive company with eye toward characters of color
Here are the top 10 cities for African American economic success according to Forbes Magazine. One thing that jumps out at you immediately is the majority of the cities are in the southern region of the United States. Cities like Atlanta being #1, and Washington DC being on the top 10 list are no surprise but some of the other cities may actually surprise you.
1. Atlanta
2. Raleigh
3. Washington, D.C.
4. Baltimore (tie)
4. Charlotte (tie)
6. Virginia Beach-Norfolk, Va.
7. Orlando, Fla.
8. Miami (tie)
8. Richmond, Va. (tie)
8. San Antonio (tie)
Sil Lai Abrams, a domestic violence activist and founder of Truth in Reality joined Roland Martin on “NewsOne Now” to discuss the impact reality TV is having on how women of color are being treated and the movement to change how women of color are being represented in the media. Listen to their interview below:
Normally my blog reports on issues in the African American community. In this post I would like to publicize the re-release of my new book, LOVE. It's not about gangsta's, strippers, or drugs but features poems about love. I'm not dissing those that write urban-lit or the genre itself ( I have written one title myself), as there is room for all genres but I am saying that there is much diversity among the topics we as black authors write about. Many authors write poetry (although we know it doesn't sell well) and I would like to share mine with you. I hope you check it out and let me know what you think and feel. I have provided links to Amazon, Nook, and Smashwords so that you can red the book on your phone, kindle, Nook, or laptop. Please check it out, it's only 99 cents.
LOVE, a collection of romantic poems. Poems about love of a spouse, child, family, or even the love of your favorite sports team.
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/511744
22-year-old Joseph Swink was on his way home when his car was side swiped by another car being chased by police. While running from his crashed car which was filing with smoke Swink was assaulted by three cops who arrived after he was side swiped. The cops believed that he was the suspect they were chasing. That would be because the suspect they were chasing was black and as soon as they saw a black man running they assumed he was guilty. But before you go all getting mad the local police chief did apologize. Watch the story below:
.jpg)
“Now That He Is Safely Dead” is the poignant poem that was written by black poet and musician Carl Wendell Hines soon after Malcolm X’s assassination in 1965. The poem has also been appropriately associated with the assassination of the anti-war activist Martin Luther King, Jr. and his legacy of leading the nonviolent struggle in America for black liberation, economic justice for the poor, and peace on earth.
“Now that he is safely dead,
Let us praise him.
Build monuments to his glory.
Sing Hosannas to his name.
Dead men make such convenient heroes.
For they cannot rise to challenge the images
That we might fashion from their lives.
It is easier to build monuments
Than to build a better world.
So now that he is safely dead,
We, with eased consciences will
Teach our children that he was a great man,
Knowing that the cause for which he
Lived is still a cause
And the dream for which he died is still a dream.
A dead man’s dream.”
— Carl Wendell Hines- A Dead Mans Dream
